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BETHLEHEM, N.H. (AP) - Mitt Romney is telling The Associated Press that he won't agree to debate Newt Gingrich one on one. The former Massachusetts governor says in an AP interview that he's not declining his rival's debate challenge because he's afraid to square off against Gingrich, as the former House speaker has implied. Rather, Romney says he doesn't want to define the contest as a "two-man race." And he says that debating Gingrich alone would be disrespectful to other candidates. Romney also is continuing to distance himself from the Washington standoff over the payroll tax-cut extension. He suggests it's...

With the Republican presidential primary appearing to have narrowed into a two-man contest, Human Events and Red State moved quickly to lock down a date for a Lincoln-Douglas-style debate between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. The two organizations went so far this past Monday as to firm up the Annenberg Theater at the Newseum in Washington as the venue on Dec. 19 after another debate originally scheduled that day was canceled. For its part, the Newseum was excited to host the pre-primary forum. There was just one problem. While Gingrich was ready to take his place on the stage, the...

(Graph at link) Conservatives4Palin(C4P) today reported that Gov. Palin’s internet search traffic is six times greater than the traffic for Romney, Gingrich, Huckabee, and Pawlenty. C4P’s story is based on Nate Silver’s “The 800-Pound Mama Grizzly Problem” published last night in the New York Times. The numbers are even more staggering when each candidate’s search traffic is analyzed. Silver wrote: Ms. Palin’s search traffic, since the start of 2010, is roughly 16 times that of Mitt Romney, 14 times that of Newt Gingrich, 38 times that of Mike Huckabee, and 87 times that of Mr. Pawlenty. (It is about six...

An interesting piece by Nate Silver at the New York Times. Silver compares Governor Palin's web traffic to other potential 2012 candidates and finds that there is no comparison: